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Megapixel Cameraphones Compared

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the through-the-paces dept.

prostoalex writes "MobileBurn published a 'horribly un-scientific' test of three megapixel cameraphones. The contenders are the Sony Ericsson S700i, the Siemens S65, and the Motorola V710." Sadly, none of the phones seem to be able to perfectly capture a mere school bus in image form.

40 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Not the point... by mirko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, it's only a phone, but it's a good tool aimed at taking both vocal and video notes.
    I use mine to take VGA pics and I am very happy with their imperfections...

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
    1. Re:Not the point... by HellYeahAutomaton · · Score: 5, Funny
      I was curious about the domain you hold, so I poked up to the main site...


      http://www.vidovic.org/

      If that's a pic of your family its got "serial killers" written all over it.

    2. Re:Not the point... by Keruo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >* Has limited battery life because of it's required small size

      It's not very nice to carry around camera, pda, phone, mp3 player, radio and usb memory everywhere you go, pocket space is sometimes limited.
      Normally embedded devices with multiple functions are designed to last atleast a day without recharging.
      Of course the battery is going to run out if you speak 5 hours straight with the phone or take 100 pictures with the camera, but modern batteries are pretty good and last longer than say, the ones there were 5 years ago.

      >* Ends up getting replaced every two years

      Who says you have to upgrade it every 2 years?
      I usually use my phone 4-5 years before I upgrade it to new model, and that's usually because the battery starts to wear out by then

      >* Marginalizes the performance of each feature (i.e. lenses)

      You're missing the point of such device entirely if you're trying to use the camera in your phone as your only digital camera or your only mp3 player or browser.
      The idea of embedding the devices into one, is to have them available if you need them, not for exclusive use.
      Sure, you cannot put exchangeable telescope lenses on cell phone cameras, but then again, why would someone want to do that in first place?

      > * Reduces cnosumer choice through bundling features

      If I want mp3 player and my cell phone has one already built-in, that won't stop me from buying one.
      The one built-in probably never was intended to completely replace portable mp3 devices.
      Only couple phone models with harddrive exist, due the size limitations, so you won't be able to squeeze much music into the phone anyways.
      Semi-professional digital cameras with exchangeable lenses are just entering the consumer market, those have been available only for professional use with hefty price tag with them.
      No all-in-one device will ever replace all different gadgets, no matter how versatile it is.
      It'll always have some weakness which would engourage consumer to get better separate device for that purpose.

      --
      There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
    3. Re:Not the point... by brain159 · · Score: 4, Informative
      Doesn't appear to be available in the USA, but the Nokia 1100 is (IMHO) the best "plain" mobile phone on the UK market. (There might be a USA-variant model of it)

      Mono screen. Monophonic ringtones. Phone calls and SMS text messaging only - no MMS, no WAP, no internet. No camera. The only "toy" feature is a white LED torch on the top.

      Small without being fiddly - keypad is pretty decent, menu system is Nokia's normal pleasant low-end-phone one again.

      Most importantly - my mum has no problem using hers at all.

      link to nokia's product page

  2. Lenses by DrVxD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem with cameraphones is largely the lenses. They suck.
    For several reasons:
    1) They have to be small (it's a phone, it has to be easily pocketable)
    2) They have a very hard life compared with a "real" camera.
    3) Most people now view mobile phones as disposable items, replacing them every year or so, so there's not a whole lot of point in spending a lot of money on a decent lens.

    (Could this ever be the first RELEVANT first post on slashdot?)

    --
    Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
    1. Re:Lenses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      (Could this ever be the first RELEVANT first post on slashdot?)

      Not a chance. ;-)

    2. Re:Lenses by accelleron · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'll have to agree with you on the first two points, but:

      "1) They have to be small (it's a phone, it has to be easily pocketable)"
      1. Sure, they have to be small, but so do digicams... putting the same lens system as that used in good "credit card" cameras couldn't hurt any.

      "2) They have a very hard life compared with a "real" camera."
      2. Once again, they could bother to learn from the real camera manufacturers. Would it kill them to put a cover over the lens - one that opens/shuts automatically like in most modern cameras.

      "3) Most people now view mobile phones as disposable items, replacing them every year or so, so there's not a whole lot of point in spending a lot of money on a decent lens."
      3. I am unsure about you, but I only buy a new phone every time my contract runs out, which is ~ every two years. The difference between a 1 and 2 year timeframe is significant, as in 1 year, technology hardly evolves much in phones (from the first cameraphones in 2k3 to the MP cameraphones - simply an enhancement, not a revolution), but in two years enough has changed to make the transition worthwhile. Besides, I hardly consider something I'll use for two years "disposabe"... as a matter of fact I've yet to dispose of a cell phone - most of them go to my family or as spare parts (LCD mod for my PC, for example)
      Anyway, I hardly have $250-500 per year to spend on the latest phone, so my current one had better be good enough to last me two years or more.

      --
      Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
    3. Re:Lenses by lordsilence · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fecking 300£ every year for the latest cellphone? Hell no. I'm happy with my Nokia 6110. It does what it's supposed to do, make calls. Send SMS and eventually even have softwarecrashes. Just like the new cellphones (appart from the camerafunction) just less flashy.

    4. Re:Lenses by Linker3000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No. 3 is very applicable in the UK where phones are heavily subsidised by call costs and it's often cheaper to upgrade your phone than buy a new li-ion battery when the one in your current phone stops holding a decent charge - for example, I manage 14 phones on contract with Orange - one of my users asked about upgrades and wondered if there was a remote chance of a PDA phone (the Orange SPV M1000) - I checked with our Orange account manager and the upgrade cost for this user is £25. Three other upgrades processed at the same time were 'free of charge'. Yep - phones are 'disposable' at the end of their 12 month contract period - in the Uk at least.

      --
      AT&ROFLMAO
    5. Re:Lenses by DrVxD · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Would it kill them to put a cover over the lens

      No, but it *would* increase the unit-cost. Most mobile phones now (apart, obviously, from the high-end smartphones such as the Sony Ericsson P800/P900/P910 or the Nokia 9xxx series) are built & sold on the "stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap" philosophy. Increase unit cost by, say, $5 a piece and they'll lose market share to those that don't do so. I know this because, up until very recently, I worked for a company which provides operating systems for high-end phones, and had some contact with people who actually make decisions about what features go into what phones.

      And, let's be honest, who buys a phone to take photographs - it has to make calls & receive calls - everything else is a bonus.

      > I've yet to dispose of a cell phone

      Me either - in the sense that you mean (i.e. throw it in the garbage). I still have all the cell phones I've ever owned. However, I meant disposable in the way you describe (i.e. give it away, cannibalise it, whatever). So actually you have "disposed" of the phones - YOU no longer using them as phones. I should probably have used less ambiguous language ;)

      > I hardly have $250-500 per year to spend on the latest phone

      Fair comment, but in some locations, the network operators heavily subsidise the cost of the phones themselves, in order to get you to sign a one/two year contract. My current phone (Sony Ericsson K700i - Phone + Camera + MP3 + Radio etc.) for instance, was a freebie. The K700i is a lousy camera (it's VGA resolution, but has a crappy lens and the CCD scanout is woefully slow). The MP3 & radio audio quality doesn't come close to my iRiver H340 - but are handy occasionally. But at least it lets me make phone calls :)

      And of course, there are some very large markets (notably those in the Far East) where having the latest phone is an absolute must - and people will be prepared to drop $500/year to have the latest gadget.

      --
      Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
  3. SE S700i... by kennycoder · · Score: 5, Informative

    seems to have excellent photo quality for a mobile phone. It has pretty much functions from normal digital camera that makes it very usefull. SE's S700i platform is the same from K700 phone but s700 supports memory sticks. You can read a very good review here:

    Phone
    Phone's camera

    --
    Fucking a fat girl is like riding a scooter... it's fun 'til someone sees you.
  4. Perfect Basic Functions First by neomage86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why are they building a phone w/ a three megapixel digital camera, when I still can't get a decent basic cell, that's small and has a weeks worth of battery per charge.

    1. Re:Perfect Basic Functions First by winkydink · · Score: 3, Interesting

      that's a battery issue, not something directly under most mfgs control as they don't design batteries, they buy them from others

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    2. Re:Perfect Basic Functions First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I agree. A phones get more functions I don't need, the actual phone functions get worse. For that reason I still use an old Nokia 6310, which seems to be the best pure phone ever made. Long battery life, very good reception, good sound and good easy to use adresbook. Oh, and a keyboard someone with thich fingers can use, and good voice dialling when you've got you hands full.

    3. Re:Perfect Basic Functions First by SillyNickName4me · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > not something directly under most mfgs control as they don't design batteries, they buy them from others

      1. I'm pretty sure that if Nokia wants a few milion batteries with certain specifications, battery manufacterors will gladly comply, so your argument does not hold.

      2. The amount of features in modern phones requires them to be more powerfull and contain more electronics and as a result use more power then needed for simple phone and text messaging functions.

      So yes, it is quite in the control of phone manufacterors.

    4. Re:Perfect Basic Functions First by winkydink · · Score: 2
      Actually, Nokia and others, design around the battery. Yes, they have some say, but they cannot say give me a battery that has three times the capacity and weighs half as much. That's a limitation of battery design issue, not an availabiltiy or customization issue.

      The camera uses little/no power when not in use. The major power consumers in a mobile phone are the display and the RF transmitter. Both are essential to the basic performance of the phone.

      Also, don't make the claim that there's a marketable number of people who would trade increased battery life for a less clear or a less functional display. If such a market existed, the mfgs would be scrambling to fill it.

      So, no, for the most part, it is not in the control of the phone mfgs. It is a combination of the physical limitations in current battery design coupled with consume demand.

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    5. Re:Perfect Basic Functions First by SillyNickName4me · · Score: 2

      > Actually, Nokia and others, design around the battery. Yes, they have some say, but they cannot say give me a battery that has three times the capacity and weighs half as much. That's a limitation of battery design issue, not an availabiltiy or customization issue.

      They are bound to what is physically possible, but when they pay for it, they can definitely also get better batteries developed. Mobile phones and laptops are the main reasons why we are no longer stuck with nicads as the only viable recharchable dry batteries.

      > The camera uses little/no power when not in use. The major power consumers in a mobile phone are the display and the RF transmitter. Both are essential to the basic performance of the phone.

      The 'big' color displays are mostly a 'must have' due to many other features of the phones beign unusable without them.

      For simple phone operation, a monochrome screen that can display 12x5 chars of text will do fine and will use a lot less power then the color screens in most modern phones.

      > Also, don't make the claim that there's a marketable number of people who would trade increased battery life for a less clear or a less functional display. If such a market existed, the mfgs would be scrambling to fill it.

      They do not fill in tha market for a reason, but that reason is not that the market does not exist.

      The reason is that that amrket has a very low replacement rate and that makes the demand from that market a lot lower.

      People are quite prepared to trade features for longer battery life, but not if the phone ebcomes 3x as expensive also to make up for the lower replacement rate.

      > So, no, for the most part, it is not in the control of the phone mfgs. It is a combination of the physical limitations in current battery design coupled with consume demand.

      Consumer demands are pretty much marketing driven, and battery makers are also driven by demand, so yes, phone manufacterors do have quite an influence here, they are just not the only ones with a say in it.

  5. Word of advice... by kaleco · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't use your megapixel camera phone to take pictures of school busses. You'll get lynched.

    --
    Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
    1. Re:Word of advice... by madmancarman · · Score: 2, Funny
      Don't use your megapixel camera phone to take pictures of school busses. You'll get lynched.

      Especially if you're of Arab descent.

      --
      First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
    2. Re:Word of advice... by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      Using them as shoe cameras (pointing up) probably isn't wise either.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  6. No important stuff by RealProgrammer · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Those were pretty pictures of cars and keyboards. Troll mode off, but who cares about subtle gradations of color in a telephone? I'd rather know about:
    • How much memory do they have for images?
    • How long do the batteries last?
    • Do they have a firewire port, or just lame USB 1.0?

      and most importantly

    • Are they decent phones?
    --
    sigs, as if you care.
  7. Cars are, uhm okay, but how about OCR? by ahfoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think the most intriguing use of camera phones is for OCR. Of course to make it work you'd need WiFi or WiMax rather than regular wireless telephone protocols. But if you could stitch together a few shots per page and quickly upload them to your home computer form the library, well that would be interesting.

    1. Re:Cars are, uhm okay, but how about OCR? by AndrewRUK · · Score: 2, Informative

      The resoloution is very poor. Consider taking a photo of an A4 page (210*297mm) with a 3 megapixel camera. This gives 1456 pixels across the short edge of the page (ignoring the difference in aspect ratios - digicams are usually 4:3, A4 paper (or any of the A-series sizes) are 1:sqrt(2)) which works out at 7 pixels/mm, or 176 dpi. Compare that with a scanner, which is typically 300 or 600 dpi.

      And, even if you did get the resolouting by stitching multiple photos together, the lighting would be no where near as even as the lighting in a scanner.

      See http://www.rootsworks.com/ocr/digicamocr.htm for an example of someone who tried it, and concluded that "The bottom line? It's not worth the trouble unless you have clean copy and get a sharp photo - and a really close up one of a small section at that. I can type it faster than I can OCR it, and correct it."

    2. Re:Cars are, uhm okay, but how about OCR? by BeerCat · · Score: 2, Informative

      Fax output (and yes, people still use them, alongside email), is IIRC 150dpi, and all the OCR vendors make capital of being able to scan a fax (yes, really), and being able to OCR that. So your 176dpi should be good enough for some industrial espionage.

      --
      "She's furniture with a pulse"
  8. Third time's a charm... by BHearsum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Can I get a phone that is just a phone please? Or a phone that excels in phone-based things? I've yet to see a cell phone that lets me block numbers at the phone level, rather than PAYING to have a number blocked with the service provider. No I don't want a crappy digital camera on my phone. No I don't want a crappy music player on my phone. No I don't want a crappy web browser on my phone. I WANT A PHONE THAT IS A PHONE. Jesus christ.

    1. Re:Third time's a charm... by slamb · · Score: 4, Informative
      I recommend the LG VX3200. It does not have:
      • A camera
      • A web browser
      • Games

      But does have:

      • A prefix search of your contact list one button away from the home screen. Some phones hide this away, and it's the most important feature. Other phones I've seen have a substring search - if you hit 'C', you get every entry with a C in it, rather than moving to the ones starting with C. And this one lets you enter more than one letter in your search; some start a new search if you enter a second letter. Handy if you have lots of numbers.
      • Several phone numbers for each entry: Home, Home2, Office, Office2, Mobile, Mobile2, Pager, Fax, Fax2, None. Handy; for a lot of people I have an apartment number, a parents' house, a cell phone, and an office number. My last phone only let me enter three numbers per contact, and I had to name one of those something completely inappropriate. (Calling the parents' house a "Fax" number or something.) I wish it let you customize the labels, but oh well. The only phones I've seen that do that are these huge Motorola things.
      • A flip cover. Protects the display, provides longer battery life by allowing the display to shut off, and makes good UI sense - never worry about forgetting the key lock and dialing numbers from your pocket.
      • A speakerphone. Handy if you have to call tech support and end up on hold forever.
      • Analog service.
      • Good battery life.
      • Caller ID-based ring tones, so you can know who's calling right away. (And they're downloadable, I think.)
      • A "recent calls" thing a button away. Hit send-send from the home and you call the last person in your dialed, received, or missed calls.
      • An alarm clock. The only non-phone tool I use all the time. Handier than a true alarm clock because you can set it quickly with the numeric keypad. Plus the act of flipping open the phone and hitting the button is a little less reflexive than hitting a huge snooze button, so it's more likely to wake me up.
      • A speed dial, one two or three digits. Either hold down the last one or hit send. I don't use it much, though - I can never remember which number is which.
      It's a good phone and fits me well. LG really has the best UI. My only real complaints are:
      • Color display. It just isn't as high-contrast as the BW ones, and they didn't help it by having the reception and battery life icons so tiny. They also could have saved some cost and battery life by going BW. But not much battery life - the display is usually off, anyway.
      • As mentioned above, no user-enterable labels for numbers. I'd like it to say "Apartment", "Mom's house", "Grundy Center", "Hospital", "Court St.", etc.
      • A huge data port on the bottom with a pull-off cover you'll inevitably lose if you use the port. Unfortunately, the car charger plugs into this, so you probably will. Less waterproof that way.

      It has a few other features (schedule, voice memo, notepad, ez tip calc, full calculator, world clock) that I never use but someone else might find helpful. And a couple stupid "my pictures" / sounds / animations things. Also voice dialing.

      I don't see any way to block numbers at the phone level, though. Sorry. Similarly, it'd be nice if a phone could have contact entries that don't show up in the main phonebook. I admit it, I've got a few phone numbers in there that I keep only to know I shouldn't answer the phone if they call. I want to see the name on the caller ID, but I don't want to have to scroll past it. I'm picky about the number of button presses to make a phone call. It has contact groups, but the main phonebook always shows all groups. You have to hit several more buttons to see just one.

    2. Re:Third time's a charm... by ajs · · Score: 3, Informative

      Can I get a phone that is just a phone please?

      Not trivially, no. There are many reasons for this. First, "just a phone" is a term that is in flux. Certainly 15 years ago, that meant a device that was attached to a wall either directly or by a short cord, and converted your face-noise to analog signal on a copper wire.

      So, what you're saying now is you want a wireless phone-like device. Then you say you want to block numbers... well that's not really a phone-like thing at all. Certainly not a phone-like thing when measured against what phones have done for the last 50 years!

      You're asking for a new device. While your wish list is nice, to ignore the wish list of the vast majority of other customers would be neglegent on the part of the management of the cell phone manufacturers.

      No I don't want a crappy digital camera on my phone.

      And yet, the idea of camera phones has caught on like wildfire, and is one of the single most popular modifications to the basic cell phone since user-downloadable ring-tones. I'm not saying you're wrong not to want this, but to act as if the industry is going off half cocked and ignoring the customer is putting blinders on to who the customer really is.

      No I don't want a crappy music player on my phone. No I don't want a crappy web browser on my phone.

      Granted, implementations of these features have been lame to say the best.

      What the world really IS waiting for is a decent, way to manage contacts. Now that phones are portable, we NEED a way to have our numbers move with us as trivially as that note-pad that we used to keep by the phone pre-cell. Replacing a phone should not be traumatic, but because of the proprietary formats involved it IS. You usually need a for-pay version of Outlook on Windows just to read the data from your phone. This makes no sense.

      I WANT A PHONE THAT IS A PHONE. Jesus christ.

      Once again, define phone.

  9. Useless features worth billions of dollars by irikar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cell phone companies (and I work for one of them) are desperately trying to make money out of their cellular phone. One of the huge market is teenagers because they tend to want to differentiate themselves and they are willing to pay for that new and cool ring tone or SMS feature, or game, or color and what not.

    I personally couldn't have imagined someone paying for a ring tone on his/her cell phone; and the ring tone business is apparently worth billions of dollars these days. Those who saw this coming were quite clever I guess, but isn't it sad that people are spending money on crappy MIDI stuff for their cell phone?

    So cell phone companies pack their devices with close-to-useless features like MIDI player for polyphonic ring tones (many people at my work call it polymorphic 'cause that's what they remembered of C++ ;) ), cameras, pictures, games, and what not.

    But seriously, don't you think the majority of people will use those extra features a few times only, mostly to show others how cool and different their new toy is and then they'll forget about them because they are what they are: useless for a cell phone.

    I wonder how this confusion will end? The difference between your average PDA and a cell phone is what now? They both play MP3s, take pictures, are organizers, are wireless cell phones, support bluetooth, are WIFI enabled, can act as vibrators; but generally speaking, they do one thing hopefully right: your PDA is probably (hopefully) a better organizer than the organize feature on your cell phone; the rest is useless crap designed to differentiate the device on the market.

    When we received our new cell phone at work, everyone, for about a week, was spending countless hours on ring tones, taking pictures, playing that stupid mini putt game, enabling Bluetooth and wandering around for another Bluetooth soul willing to answer, etc., etc.

    Now; yeah sure everyone has his/her own "personal" ring tone differentiator, but the damn cell phone is used a cell phone, the extra features are now what they are: useless.

    1. Re:Useless features worth billions of dollars by swiftstream · · Score: 2, Insightful

      yeah sure everyone has his/her own "personal" ring tone differentiator...

      The funniest thing about it is when people change their ring tones so often that they're never sure what they are, and everybody reaches for their phones anyway...

      --
      Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
    2. Re:Useless features worth billions of dollars by boomfart · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The best use for phone cameras I have seen was at a part supplier, an electrician sent his apprentice to pick up a blue whatsit like they got 3 months ago the apprentice lined up every thing we had that could match the despription and sent the pictures to someone on site to compare to the existing unit. He reckoned he did things this way a lot and it made life much easier.

  10. Convergence isn't a bad thing! by Ianoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of people come out with comments like "I want a phone that's just a phone" or "I don't need/want these features when I can get better separate units that do the same thing". This is really silly.
    I don't know what the American market is like, but here in the UK, I got a Nokia 7610 for 50GBP (that's less than $90) on a very reasonable contract (500 free minutes per month and other goodies for 25GBP / $40 pm).
    Although I have a much better PDA (Palm Tungsten T3), and a much better digicam (Canon Powershot A80) and a much better MP3 player (iPod Mini), guess how much of the time I'm carrying all of these around with me? Practically ziltch. But, I do almost always have my phone with me, 24/7.
    So, the times I've forgotten my camera, the megapixel camera on the phone is great for a quick and dirty picture of something interesting or important. When I don't have room for my PDA, the phone is great for recording a memo or checking my diary (I sync both with the same desktop PIM, and it mostly works). It's also cool that when I don't have time to pack the iPod, I can take a short journey and still listen to almost a whole album at 128kbps from the 64MB SD card.
    The phone is a great phone by itself, with excellent contact management, call management, logging and other features. Since it was so cheap, these extras are essentially bonuses. It's also hardly bigger or heavier than a "normal" cellphone. It also has the trademark Nokia battery life of several days. This is quite sufficient even when on the road, especially since every third person you meet seems to have a universal Nokia charger stowed away somewhere.
    I look forward to the day when I can put my PDA, iPod and camera in the drawer forever, and I think we might only be a few years shy of it. Until then, I will enjoy my phone and its extras, using the additional separate devices when I want better quality.
    And thanks to my contract, I get a brand new smartphone every year.

    1. Re:Convergence isn't a bad thing! by ajs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Let's go a step further. I don't want a phone! I want a house and a car and a computer and whatever else... and they should all have build-in phones. We should stop thinking of the phone as a device with low-end appliances built in. We should be building phones into the best-of-breed appliances. Why shouldn't an iPod come with a cell phone build in? Reduces the number of items you have to carry by one, and doesn't even require a form-factor change.

      Why not have that base-unit for your wireless keyboard and mouse also provide a (physically switched, thank you very much) speakerphone that speaks VoIP? Why do I need a second device on my desk?

      Why should a car ever ship without a built-in phone?

      Of course, much of the reason for this is financial. The cell companies fight hard against making it easy to move your phone between services, and if appliances came with built-in phones, people would demand that they be able to sign up or not sign up for a service of their choosing at their leisure, otherwise it's more of an extra fee, and they'll prefer devices without phones.

      I think that can be overcome, though, regardless of how much the industry likes it.

  11. *cries* by EvilStein · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For the love of god, I just want a phone that can actually make a phone call from within my apartment. Or even on my patio.. or down at the corner.

    I have T-Mobile (work phone) and have 0 signal within a 1/8th mile radius of my apartment. AT&T, Cingular, MetroPCS, and Sprint are all terrible around here as well. Only phone that gets "2 bars" is a Verizon one, and even that's spotty.
    I do *not* live in the boonies. I'm in an east SF bay area with over 250,000 people. Definately not BFE.

    Instead, we get ringtones, games, and flippin *cameras* that take lousy photos.
    GSM seems to suck in the US. I rarely had coverage problems with my old TDMA phone.

    1. Re:*cries* by marsu_k · · Score: 2, Informative
      GSM seems to suck in the US.
      Apparently yes. But that doesn't mean the situation is similiar in the rest of the world. I get full coverage (in Finland) in cities, and even in rural areas you can certainly make or recieve calls, albeit with a lower quality. And this country is certainly not densely populated. So blame your provider.
  12. going to cut-n-paste this for future discussions: by Johnny318 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Three points:

    1. Cellphones come in different models, some with cameras, some without. Happily, the ones WITHOUT cameras are usually cheaper, which is great for those that don't want "extra stuff I will never use."

    2. Cameras on a cellphone are extremely useful because it's WITH YOU all the time, and with relative ease you can send a picture from where you took a picture to an arbitrary email address. Even on the low-end .3megapixel you can take useful pictures that may serve a purpose.

    3. The last thing you do before you die is crap your pants.

    My eyes ache from rolling to the back of my head whenever I click on a slashdot cellphone article, because it always goes down this road (and yes, this post is part of that).

  13. right tool for the job by vijayiyer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People have already mentioned why camera phones aren't up to snuff. I have a diminutive Canon SD200 which I love. I wish I could find an equally good phone. Instead, all the phones with bluetooth seem to also have a camera built in and therefore suffer in size and weight. Not everyone wants a mediocre phone/camera/camcorder/mp3 player, and I don't think it's possible due to ergonomics to make something that does all of those well.

  14. School Bus? by musselm · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sadly, none of the phones seem to be able to perfectly capture a mere school bus in image form.

    Man, that's a real drag. I can't tell you how often I need to capture a mere school bus in image form. Not going to buy one of these phones.

  15. Nokia 8265 is one by SirNarfsALot · · Score: 2

    About the only features one could consider frivolous on it are a few games and text messaging. Monochrome screen, crappy ringtones, no frills. Good reception, compact, solid (I don't even know how many times I've dropped it) and of course you can't get it anymore. I'm going to use mine until it breaks or AT&T shuts down their TDMA network.

    The problem is that when you can get a "free" cameraphone with a color screen and polyphonic ringtones and downloadable games, why would anyone want something that does less? God forbid any company should make a phone with excellent reception and battery life and advertise it as such, because we certainly don't want that.

  16. Symbian owns the smartphone market by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love my Nokia 7610.. I've heald the LG, and the Nokia is definately a step above the others.

    Why Symbian? It gives developers more access to the phone than Java does. Things like:

    -Fullscreen Caller ID
    -Blacklist (sends anyone on it to voicemail)
    -CallCheater (adds background noice to your call)
    -Plays all N-Gage games
    -3rd party IM program that supports voice & sending pictures over IM
    -watch downconverted movies in widescreen
    -NES emulator
    -Sega Genesis Emulator w/perfect speed

    That's just a tiny list of the hundreds (thousands?) of 3rd party apps and games available.

    basically anything the other phones can do, symbian lets 3rd party developers do better.

  17. I'm holding out for a phone-cam.... by lucason · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not that interested in a phone that can take pictures.

    Now if someone would start selling cameras that can make a phone call... I'm there!